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IT Governance – What’s It All About and How Can It Benefit Organizations

IT Governance – the buzz topic that many people in computing now mention in almost every conference, journal or IT Publications. So for a moment, just consider, what isIT Governance and why is it so important to you and your business?

There are many pressures on businesses these days to find the most cost and time efficient way to service customers. However, when it comes to modifying the behaviors of both individuals and of established business processes, this can be a challenge.

Often, the management team of companies are subject to the pressure of demonstrating to investors that the organization is well run and is capable of delivering maximum returns to shareholders and customers. Simultaneously, external agencies including government offices now expect companies to meet ongoing regulatory and governance directives to show that business and IT compliance requirements are being met.

These business drivers in turn place a range of pressures on the IT systems that support business processes.

In this article, we will go some way to explaining how IT Governance is the answer to these burning questions.

IT governance framework is a discipline that involves managing people, processes and resources. Ultimately, it is about aligning the organization’s IT goals with its business goals to ensure optimum and uninterrupted service delivery. There are fundamental processes that need to be in place and companies who implement such IT governance solutions and procedures always benefit from knowing what they have, who is using the resources, why they are using the resources whether resources are being used in the most time- and cost-effective methods.

Several methodologies have been designed to help management structure and formalize the IT Governance framework which can help alleviate the pressure to:

Aid in aligning IT with the organizational goals and strategy.

Raise the profile of IT.

Aid in project and portfolio management.

Reduce IT risk.

Aid in IT strategic planning.

Aid in performance measurement.

Aid in embedding IT into the organization’s culture.

Aid in demand management (demand for IT’s services by other departments)

Optimize IT operations.

Increase project visibility.

In the next article, I will be discussing the best practices around implementing IT Governance Frameworks and ways of effectively choosing and implementing them for tasting the business benefits.